


Such Fine Music

by notyouranswer (gorgeouschaos)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, Boy King of Hell Sam Winchester, Dark Dean Winchester, Dark Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester in Hell, Gen, Hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:07:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21913402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorgeouschaos/pseuds/notyouranswer
Summary: Ruby died before she met Sam.Dean died in Bobby’s living room.It took Sam six and a half months to get him back.By the time Sam got to Dean, Lilith didn’t rule Hell anymore.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 8
Kudos: 128





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Through the Glass, Darkly](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6842635) by [The_Bookkeeper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Bookkeeper/pseuds/The_Bookkeeper). 



> “I tell you such fine music waits in the shadows of hell.” --Charles Bukowski
> 
> A thousand thank yous to The_Bookkeeper who gave me permission to use this basic concept from their awesome work Through the Glass, Darkly. It’s fantastic and you should read it, along with everything else they’ve written. Hopefully this fic does their work justice. I just couldn’t get the idea that Ruby kept Sam from becoming the Boy King of Hell out of my head.
> 
> Warnings: generally unhinged Sam and Dean, a few lines which vaguely imply/mention rape, implied/referenced torture.
> 
> Thanks for reading, hope you like it, and feedback makes my day :)

Dean died in Bobby’s living room.

Sam didn’t let Bobby burn the body. He knew Dean might need it when he got back.

“Sam,” Bobby said cautiously, “I don’t know if that’s--”

“I’m getting him back, Bobby,” Sam said. “I’m getting him back or I’m gonna die trying.”

“I’ve lost enough already, Sam. Don’t make me lose you too.”

Sam smiled and Bobby flinched from what he saw there.

Sam buried Dean. Not too deep, because he didn’t know how Dean was going to come back. Sam didn’t want to bury his brother, but he knew he had to.

Driving around with a body was a good way to get in trouble.

Sam didn’t bother researching ‘normal’ ways to get someone out of a deal or out of Hell. He’d spent the past year doing that, after all, and look where it had gotten him.

It had gotten Dean ripped to shreds and dragged to Hell. It had left Sam alone.

No, research wouldn’t save Dean. 

Instead, he remembered Ava, and he started practicing.

_ You have no idea what you’re capable of _ , she’d said.

After the first time he killed a demon, Sam smiled at his reflection in the cheap motel bathroom mirror.

Cracks began to spiderweb through the glass.

Sam slept the best he had since the night the Hellhounds came for his brother.

(Castiel and his garrison were not sent to Hell. Heaven watched Sam Winchester and waited.

They knew Sam’s plans. It would have been ideal if he had met the demon as intended, of course, but this would work just as well. 

If the boy with the demon blood was successful, he would be practically handing himself over to Lucifer. 

If not, well.

A broken Righteous Man would serve just as well as a sane one.)

Time passed. Sam only noticed because every day was another day Dean was burning. The only thing that mattered was getting his brother out.

Sam stopped getting nosebleeds and stopped getting out of breath. Sam spent every moment practicing, getting better, getting stronger.

_ You had no idea, Ava.  _

She had barely scratched the surface of what they could do.

Lilith tried only once to get Sam addicted to demon blood. When the chosen demon approached him in a bar, wearing the prettiest meatsuit she’d been able to find on short notice, Sam smiled and invited her back to his hotel room.

He killed her the moment the door closed behind them.

Lilith did not try again. 

She was not afraid. She was becoming wary, though. The Winchesters weren’t following the roles they were supposed to.

The Righteous Man was not supposed to take this long to break. The Righteous Man’s brother was not supposed to have been this much of a threat. 

Lilith wondered if perhaps the angels had overestimated the power of fate.

Three and a half months after Dean died, Sam made three demons tap-dance for hours, just because he could. He forced information on his brother out of them once the last one passed out.

It was the first, but far from the last, time that Sam heard the name  _ Alastair _ . 

Sam destroyed them not because they lied but because of what they said about his brother.

“He screams so pretty,” one of them said. “Such a shame he doesn’t get passed around much. Alastair’s so possessive.”

She died screaming and Sam smiled as she did.

Thirty-five years after the Righteous Man died, the rumours began to swirl around Hell.

In Hell, the demons began to whisper. There were rumours of a human with demon blood in his veins and yellow streaks in his eyes.

In Hell, the demons began to prepare for a new king.

In Hell, a white-eyed demon paced, and the green-eyed soul beside him put down his knife and began to laugh. 

Dean Winchester did not stop laughing until his tongue was torn out.

“No one is going to save you,” Alastair hissed. “You’re mine until the day everything ends. No one’s coming for you.”

Once, Dean would have spat blood in the demon’s face. Now, he tilted his head back to bare his throat in submission. He closed his eyes.

It was hard to scream with no tongue, but Dean managed it. He had practice.

Alastair let him off the Rack after only a few days. 

“What do you say?” Alastair inquired, twirling his favorite razor in his hand. 

“Thank you.” 

When Dean tried to stand, Alastair shoved him back onto his knees. “Not just yet. Make yourself useful first.”

Dean buried the decades-old spark of resentment and hatred that was threatening to rekindle itself. He buried it deep, below the memories of Mom and the Impala and Sammy everything he did his best not to dream about.

Dean couldn’t bring himself to put it out, though. Not yet.

Sammy was coming for him and oh, Hell followed in Sammy’s wake now.

Perhaps it always had.

Dean stepped off the Rack and oh, Hell was inside Dean’s veins, now. 

Perhaps it always had been.

_ The Boy King of Hell,  _ the demons whispered, more and more often as the years burned by.

_ Azazel’s yellow-eyed heir. _

_ The boy with the demon blood. _

Alastair listened to it all, and he wondered.

Lilith listened to it all, and she worried.

Dean listened to it all, and he waited.


	2. Chapter 2

It took Sam six months and ten days to decide what he had to do.

The demons had told him that time moved much faster in Hell. Ten years to a month, they said. That meant a year every three days.

Dean had been in Hell for 63.33 years.

Sam decided he was as strong as he was ever going to be and left for Wyoming, Def Leppard blasting from the Impala’s speakers.

Sam opened the Devil’s Gate six months and eleven days after he watched Dean die. The startled demons surged forward, but Sam held them back. It took effort, but he wouldn’t have to hold them for long.

Sam stepped through the Gate and into Hell. The Gate slammed shut behind him.

The demons who had been near the Gate stared at Sam, tight-packed and silent. There were hundreds of them. 

“Move,” Sam said. 

A susurrus went through the crowd.

They moved. 

They didn’t disperse, though.

They knelt.

“Welcome, my king,” the demon closest to Sam murmured. She appeared older than most of the others-- the smoke she was made of was darker-- and hummed with power. “Hell has long anticipated your arrival.”

Sam blinked slowly. His eyes were almost entirely yellow now.

“Take me to my brother.”

“Of course, my lord.”

The demons parted and Sam walked between them with no fear.

Lilith confronted Sam on the edges of the wastelands.

“Leave before you die, boy,” she ordered him.

Sam observed her. The queen of Hell flickered between a young, blonde-haired girl, and a warped, white pillar with fangs and claws.

She smelled like fear.

“I don’t think Hell follows you anymore,” Sam said.

The demon guiding him took a few steps backward.

When Lilith died, Hell did not so much change as settle.

Hell has known who its king was since the day Dean Winchester was dragged into Hell.

When Lilith died, Heaven fell silent.

52 seals had broken and the final seal had fallen.

“Castiel,” Uriel said at last. “You will retrieve the Righteous Man from Hell.”

Castiel nodded. It had pained him to see such a pure soul sent to Perdition and he was glad to have the chance to save Dean Winchester.

“Take no one else. This must be done secretly.”

Castiel, puzzled, nodded.

“Kill the Boy King,” Uriel added.

Castiel entered Hell with a troubled feeling he did not recognize as doubt. 

Sam’s guide, who told him her name was Kitty, took him to Alastair’s domain.

“He’ll know you’re here,” Kitty told him. “All of Hell knows.”

Sam smiled and his eyes flared gold. “Good.”

Kitty swallowed hard, but she followed him as he stepped onto the vast stretches of black sands that Alastair ruled.

Sam found he rather liked her.

The white-eyed demon was waiting for Sam by the Rack. He looked more human than Lilith had. 

Sam scanned the Rack, trying not to look too closely, and wondered how many times Dean had died on it.

“Hey, Sammy,” Alastair crooned. “I heard you were coming.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“I’m hurt.” Alastair placed a clawed hand over where his heart would have been. “I’ve spent so much time with your brother and I know him so… so  _ intimately _ , you know. I almost feel like I know you as well.”

Sam said nothing.

“What are you here for,  _ boy king _ ?” The last few words dripped with sarcasm.

“I’m going to kill you.”

“You can’t. Not here. You’re in my kingdom now, Sammy, and I make the rules here.”

Alastair wasn’t lying.

Sam raised his hand to try anyway. Almost immediately, he felt the nosebleed begin. He ignored it.

No one put their hands on his brother and walked away. 

Sam was beginning to tire when a straight razor sliced through Alastair’s left carotid artery from behind. As the demon began to turn, the razor went through his right one.

Alastair fell. 

A black-eyed demon stood over him, straight razor in his hand.

Sam would know that soul anywhere. In Heaven, in Hell, in anywhere between.

“ _ I _ can kill you, though,” Sam’s brother told the dying demon. Dean’s lips were peeled back in a blood-stained snarl. “Because I’m yours until the end of everything, because I’m your apprentice, because I’m your fucking  _ heir _ . Because I’m part of you now.”

Alastair, his hands twitching, stared up at Dean.

“So I can kill you,” Dean said. “So I can fucking kill you, you bastard. I fucking  _ won _ .”

Sam took a step forward.

“I killed you. I won,” Dean repeated. 

The razor fell from Dean’s hand and bounced off Alastair’s chest.

Sam got to his brother just before Dean collapsed. Sam caught Dean and let himself fall to his knees.

“Hey, Sammy,” Dean said. His eyes were black but flashed green as he smiled. “Took you long enough.”

Sam buried his face in Dean’s shoulder and cried.

Kitty daintily stepped over Alastair’s corpse and grabbed the blowtorch from beside the rack.

“I’ll get the body,” she told Sam. “And I’ll tell any nosy motherfuckers to fuck off. I expect a job, by the way, sir. A nice one.”

“I like her,” Dean said. He was shaking. Sam was glad that Kitty was burning Alastair’s body, because Dean’s eyes seemed fixed on it.

Sam choked out, “You would. Jerk.”

“Bitch.”

Hell waited.

It had waited a long time for its rightful ruler to come home. It was content to wait for a while longer.


	3. Chapter 3

Sam had ruled Hell for forty years when Castiel was captured.

“The border guards wanted to kill it, sir,” Kitty told Sam, pointing a manicured finger at the angel in chains. “I thought you might want to see it, though.”

“Thank you.” Sam circled the angel. It was an angel, that was clear. Nothing else glowed thar bright. “Everyone out.”

Kitty closed the door behind her. The Hellhounds stayed.

Sam never went anywhere without his Hellhounds.

Sam tilted his head.  **_Dean?_ **

There was a pause. Sam felt his brother turn his attention from the soul on the rack before him to Sam.

**_Gimme a sec._ **

It had taken the two of them only a few years to realize that they could communicate telepathically.

Or, as Dean had put it, “More of your freaky bad-ass superpowers. Those do come in handy.”   
  


“I was sent to rescue the Righteous Man,” the angel said.

Sam laughed. “You’re about a hundred years too late, angel.”

“My name is Castiel.”

Sam ignored him.

Dean arrived two minutes later. He had been on the other side of Hell, but Alastair’s domain was his. Hell answered to Dean almost as much as Sam.

“Well, well, well,” Dean murmured. “Pretty little birdie got lost, did he?”

“Dean--” the angel started.

Dean ran his fingers through Castiel’s feathers. The angel shivered. Sam wasn’t sure why, but Dean probably knew.

Dean was good at knowing everything that made someone tick.

“Why are you here, birdie?”

Dean’s voice only sounded that smooth when he was torturing, anymore. 

It was just another reason Sam would give nearly anything to bring back Alastair just to let Dean have him.

“I was sent to rescue you, Dean,” Castiel said. “And I was sent to kill your brother.”

Dean glanced at Sam, deferring to Sam’s judgement. 

“Are you going to try, Castiel?” Sam asked.

The angel tilted his head up defiantly. 

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I saw you,” Castiel said. “Because I saw Dean.”

“Why should we trust you?” Dean growled. 

“I’ll tell you everything,” Castiel promised. 

Castiel had seen the shattered darkness that was Dean’s soul, the tainted fire that was Sam’s, and he had known that he was going to Fall for them.

_ In nomine Winchester _ , he thought, a bitter twist to his mouth, and he began to speak.

Sam had ruled Hell for three hundred years when Heaven tried again. 

Standing over Uriel’s body, his angel blade in hand, Castiel drank Uriel’s Grace. The rotting skeletons of his wings began to regrow their feathers. He rolled his shoulders and sighed with relief.

It wouldn’t last long. It never did. It would get him through another few decades at full power, though.

Dean twirled his newly acquired angel blades thoughtfully. Castiel thought, not for the first time, that the most beautiful thing he had ever seen was a blade in Dean’s hand.

Sam lowered his hand and swiped blood from his nose. Angels were more difficult than demons.

“They’re going to try again,” Castiel warned. “They won’t stop.”

Sam smiled. It was the same smile Bobby had flinched from, four hundred years ago. 

The only difference was the color of his eyes. They were entirely yellow and they flared as he took in the dead angels at his feet.

“Then let’s go to war,” Sam said, and neither Dean or Castiel thought of disagreeing.

(Maybe Ruby was the best option.)


End file.
